I've eaten this twice before but had no idea of it's nutrional benefits. I was at the Gurdwara Sahib waiting to go home and a few boxes of Nutrela caught my eye. I went over and read the lables. I was suprised to see how much protein it contained. I think the price sticker showed $1.49 for a box of minichunks, which seems pretty reasonable to me. I've had this with peas in thari and just plain mixed in thurka and it tasted great and was really filling both times.

At a recent conference in LA, a few major manufacturers from the natural foods industry were there making presentations. One of the major points they continually hit on is the expanding Soy Protein market, and the barriers to entry due to misinformation:

"Many studies that have been done that show absolutely no affect in testosterone or estrogen levels in males or females when using a Soy Protein Isolate. The studies were done against Whey Isolates, Soy, and a placebo, and the results that came back in terms of testosterone and estrogen levels were all exactly the same with no variations in any of the groups.

They also discussed the apprehension in females considering Soy proteins due to potential carcinogens leading to breast cancer. There have been no studies that have shown any sort of conclusive results in humans whatsoever that link Soy protein to breast cancer; a few studies that were conducted in pharmaceutical laboratories with lab animals were the basis for these conclusions, but the amount of material introduced into the test subjects far exceeded the highest level of human consumption for the material.

Soy protein is a cheaper, ecologically sound, and now a widely available dairy alternative, with an amino profile that is easily comparable to whey proteins. Only 5% of the current supply of Soy products is used for human consumption; the other 95% of the material is being used as animal feed. With the growing costs and demands for dairy products, Soy will become increasingly more and more popular and widely used."

Basically, in terms of biological value Soy is not as high as Whey, but the negative rep is overkill especially since most people take soy as only a portion of their daily intake, unless they are vegan.